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<title>Comparison of fs functions, base R, and shell commands</title>

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<h1 class="title toc-ignore">Comparison of fs functions, base R, and shell commands</h1>



<p>Most of the functionality is <strong>fs</strong> can be approximated with functions in <strong>base R</strong> or in a command line shell. The table at the end of this vignette can be used as a translation aid between these three methods.</p>
<p><strong>fs</strong> functions smooth over some of the idiosyncrasies of file handling with base R functions:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Vectorization. All <strong>fs</strong> functions are vectorized, accepting multiple paths as input. Base functions are inconsistently vectorized.</p></li>
<li><p>Predictable return values that always convey a path. All <strong>fs</strong> functions return a character vector of paths, a named integer or a logical vector, where the names give the paths. Base return values are more varied: they are often logical or contain error codes which require downstream processing.</p></li>
<li><p>Explicit failure. If <strong>fs</strong> operations fail, they throw an error. Base functions tend to generate a warning and a system dependent error code. This makes it easy to miss a failure.</p></li>
<li><p>UTF-8 all the things. <strong>fs</strong> functions always convert input paths to UTF-8 and return results as UTF-8. This gives you path encoding consistency across OSes. Base functions rely on the native system encoding.</p></li>
<li><p>Naming convention. <strong>fs</strong> functions use a consistent naming convention. Because base R’s functions were gradually added over time there are a number of different conventions used (e.g. <code>path.expand()</code> vs <code>normalizePath()</code>; <code>Sys.chmod()</code> vs <code>file.access()</code>).</p></li>
</ul>
<div id="directory-functions" class="section level2">
<h2>Directory functions</h2>
<table>
<colgroup>
<col width="33%"></col>
<col width="33%"></col>
<col width="33%"></col>
</colgroup>
<thead>
<tr class="header">
<th>fs</th>
<th>base</th>
<th>shell</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr class="odd">
<td><code>dir_ls(&quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>list.files(&quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>ls path</code></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><code>dir_info(&quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>do.call(rbind, lapply(list.files(&quot;path&quot;), file.info))</code></td>
<td><code>ls -al path</code></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><code>dir_copy(&quot;path&quot;, &quot;new-path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>dir.create(&quot;new-path&quot;); file.copy(&quot;path&quot;, &quot;new-path&quot;, recursive=TRUE)</code></td>
<td><code>cp path new-path</code></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><code>dir_create(&quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>dir.create(&quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>mkdir path</code></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><code>dir_delete(&quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>unlink(&quot;path&quot;, recursive = TRUE)</code></td>
<td><code>rm -rf path</code></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><code>dir_exists(&quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>dir.exists(&quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>if [ -d &quot;path&quot; ]; then ... ; fi</code></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><del><code>dir_move()</code></del> (see <code>file_move</code>)</td>
<td><code>file.rename(&quot;path&quot;, &quot;new-path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>mv path new-path</code></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><code>dir_map(&quot;path&quot;, fun)</code></td>
<td><em>No direct equivalent</em></td>
<td><code>for file in $(ls path); do ...; done</code></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><code>dir_tree(&quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><em>No direct equivalent</em></td>
<td><code>tree path</code></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<div id="file-functions" class="section level2">
<h2>File functions</h2>
<table>
<colgroup>
<col width="33%"></col>
<col width="33%"></col>
<col width="33%"></col>
</colgroup>
<thead>
<tr class="header">
<th>fs</th>
<th>base</th>
<th>shell</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr class="odd">
<td><code>file_chmod(&quot;path&quot;, &quot;mode&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>Sys.chmod(&quot;path&quot;, &quot;mode&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>chmod mode path</code></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><code>file_chown(&quot;path&quot;, &quot;user_id&quot;, &quot;group_id&quot;)</code></td>
<td><em>No direct equivalent</em></td>
<td><code>chown options path</code></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><code>file_copy(&quot;path&quot;, &quot;new-path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>file.copy(&quot;path&quot;, &quot;new-path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>cp path new-path</code></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><code>file_create(&quot;new-path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>file.create(&quot;new-path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>touch new-path</code></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><code>file_delete(&quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>unlink(&quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>rm path</code></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><code>file_exists(&quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>file.exists(&quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>if [ -f &quot;path&quot; ]; then ... ; fi</code></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><code>file_info(&quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>file.info(&quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>ls -al path</code></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><code>file_move(&quot;path&quot;, &quot;new-path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>file.rename(&quot;path&quot;, &quot;new-path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>mv path new-path</code></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><code>file_show(&quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>browseURL(&quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>open path</code></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><code>file_touch()</code></td>
<td><em>No direct equivalent</em></td>
<td><code>touch path</code></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><code>file_temp()</code></td>
<td><code>tempfile()</code></td>
<td><code>mktemp</code></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><code>file_test()</code></td>
<td><em>No direct equivalent</em></td>
<td><code>if [ -d &quot;path&quot; ]; then ...; fi</code></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<div id="path-functions" class="section level2">
<h2>Path functions</h2>
<table>
<colgroup>
<col width="33%"></col>
<col width="33%"></col>
<col width="33%"></col>
</colgroup>
<thead>
<tr class="header">
<th>fs</th>
<th>base</th>
<th>shell</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr class="odd">
<td><code>path(&quot;top_dir&quot;, &quot;nested_dir&quot;, &quot;file&quot;, ext = &quot;ext&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>file.path(&quot;top_dir&quot;, &quot;nested_dir&quot;, &quot;file.ext&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>top_dir/nested_dir/file.ext</code></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><code>path_expand(&quot;~/path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>path.expand()</code></td>
<td><code>realpath -m -s ~/path</code></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><code>path_dir(&quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>dirname(&quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>dirname path</code></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><code>path_file(&quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>basename(&quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>basename path</code></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><code>path_home()</code></td>
<td><code>path.expand(&quot;~&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>$HOME</code></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><code>path_package(&quot;pkgname&quot;, &quot;dir&quot;, &quot;file&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>system.file(&quot;dir&quot;, &quot;file&quot;, package = &quot;pkgname&quot;)</code></td>
<td><em>No direct equivalent</em></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><code>path_norm(&quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>normalizePath()</code></td>
<td><code>realpath</code></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><code>path_real(&quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>normalizePath(mustWork = TRUE)</code></td>
<td><code>realpath</code></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><code>path_rel(&quot;path/foo&quot;, &quot;path/bar&quot;)</code></td>
<td><em>No direct equivalent</em></td>
<td><em>No direct equivalent</em></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><code>path_common(c(&quot;path/foo&quot;, &quot;path/bar&quot;, &quot;path/baz&quot;))</code></td>
<td><em>No direct equivalent</em></td>
<td><em>No direct equivalent</em></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><code>path_ext_remove(&quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>sub(&quot;\\.[a-zA-Z0-9]*$&quot;, &quot;&quot;, &quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><em>No direct equivalent</em></td>
</tr>
<tr class="even">
<td><code>path_ext_set(&quot;path&quot;, &quot;new_ext&quot;)</code></td>
<td><code>sub(&quot;\\.[a-zA-Z0-9]*$&quot;, &quot;new_ext&quot;, &quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><em>No direct equivalent</em></td>
</tr>
<tr class="odd">
<td><code>path_sanitize(&quot;path&quot;)</code></td>
<td><em>No direct equivalent</em></td>
<td><em>No direct equivalent</em></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>



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